


carrying on eternal war since the world began

by burningdarkfire



Series: yet is there hope (9 Worlds) [9]
Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 19:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burningdarkfire/pseuds/burningdarkfire
Summary: 9 different worlds in which the 2 of them meet.ninth - the world of NieR: Automata, where 2B is 2B, 9S is 9S, and they were built to bring glory to mankind.





	carrying on eternal war since the world began

**Author's Note:**

> This final fic is very reflective of my own playstyle and thoughts while playing the game. I thought it would be suitable to end on a happy, canon-compliant note :)

_"We're soldiers," 9S says, "we take pride in our service," and he dies for the one hundred and ninety-seventh time, a gentle tap of his black box against another._

* * *

In his spare time, 9S likes to explore Earth.  And after a chiding word or two about the mission, 2B is generally content to come with him.  She looks on with a bemused smile as 9S tries to tempt a moose to eat from his hand or she spends an afternoon fishing with her pod as he scrambles up the roots of a large tree.  9S tries not to disturb her too much when she's enjoying herself, spending his time noting the incredible varieties in plant life instead.

Sometimes, he finds himself dazed as the sunshine glimmers off 2B's hair, but he shakes it off when she turns, looking around for him as if he might be lost after only a few minutes.

He always splashes over in an excitement if she catches anything, her pod glistening from dipping into the water.  He knows 2B has a hard time hiding a smile when she passes a new type of fish off to him for him to catalogue.  The fish always wiggle, and more than once they've dropped one in the exchange, watching it hurriedly swim away with its hard-fought freedom.

Those half-smiles on sunny afternoons are what gets him through the days where he has to see her, bruised, angry, crying when she thinks he isn't looking.

He's always looking.  He's the best scanner model around, after all.  If he keeps looking, he's bound to find a path to peace. 

He would kill every machine on this godforsaken planet, if it meant the two of them could slip away, like the fish that disappear in a splash of sunlight.  If it meant 2B would really, truly smile at him.

* * *

_It is a sort of unspoken secret in the Bunker, that if you ask an Operator, just with a passing inquisitive whisper in the hall, they can look up the number of times you've died.  It's an important part of the combat data collected off of YoRHa androids – who is dying, and how often, and why._

_It's never been confirmed, because 9S has never asked and it seems a little wrong to snoop without him knowing, but there's also a sort of unspoken feeling in the Bunker that 9S must be on top of the leaderboard.  All the YoRHa agents are used to his patchwork memory by now, half-bemused by and half-pitying his never-ending confusion when they reference something that happened last year, or five months ago, or two days ago.  He has a specific way of tilting his head, a particular blank brightness in the eyes, when he has just been reset._

_After a while, most of the YoRHa androids also realize that if 2B is in the Bunker, sweeping angrily through the halls in a black mood, then 9S is probably somewhere in maintenance, being reset yet again._

_They themselves reset, of course, and forget.  But after a few years it lingers, like a truth built into the fabric of YoRHa itself.  A quiet myth, floating in space._

* * *

9S complains about the sand in his shoes every time they go to the desert.  He's not sure why, but 2B always looks a certain kind of way when he does.  After catching her a few times, he thinks that she's _relieved_ , of all things, that he chooses to whine and shout about the way sand pours into his shoes, so he keeps doing it.

Despite the sand, 9S actually learns to enjoy the time they spend in the desert, especially when they move farther away from any inhabited buildings.  He likes the feeling of the wind in his hair as he surfs through the sand, weaving around 2B as she sets course for their latest mission. 

It's easy to turn away, for a moment, stare into the distance, and face the endless sea of sand.  He wonders what's on the other side.  He had read once that on the old Earth, there were vast deserts that could take over 40 days to cross by foot.  He imagines that now, with the sun shining down on them incessantly, they must be bigger.

At any moment he can call upon 21O to send him a map and answer his question, yet he finds himself refraining, choosing instead to pass the quiet travelling hours coming up with his own theories.  There is something exciting about leaving the possibilities open – as long as it didn't interfere with their missions, of course, but he and 2B rarely go more than a day's travel into the desert, so he figures it is okay. 

Maybe after the war, he and 2B could cross the desert together.  They could start a new life on the other side.

He had asked 2B once what she thought was out there and she had shrugged him off.  The desert was a sore spot for 2B, 9S had quickly figured out.  The first time they had come across a temple, half-buried beneath the sand,  9S had suggested that they check it out.  He had not been ready for her angry snap, the suggestion that he just stay on mission for _once_ in his life, spoken with a considerable amount of venom.

In the moment, he had been stunned, afraid that he had actually angered his partner.  But after careful analysis of the memory, he had concluded that it wasn't personal.  The combat android will never flinch from any enemy, but 2B dreads the idea of going into the temples.

9S doesn't push.  He knows 2B wouldn't appreciate it.  But he digs through old human archives, sometimes, wondering what might be in the temples that 2B is afraid of.  Other times, he thinks that it doesn't matter.  They could cross the desert without ever entering a temple, he's sure.  They could be free.  Maybe when they reach the other side, 2B wouldn't be afraid any more.

* * *

_"Goodbye, 2B ..."_

_His first death (actually, his fourth, but the first that had mattered)._

* * *

9S realizes that at some point, it had stopped being aggressively weird that they're walking and talking amongst machines instead of destroying them.  Sometimes, after an afternoon playing games with the machines in the amusement park, it is easy to forget there's a war.  He even talks 2B into riding the roller coaster a few more times.  He tries sitting in the seats and raising his arms as the humans did, even if he can't convince 2B to do it with him, and he finds it fun.

All in the name of collecting data, of course.

Even 2B has grown comfortable with the machines in Pascal's village, willing to indulge in their chatter and requests.  She doesn't let it hinder mission efficiency, but she will quietly go out of her way to deliver messages and fetch parts for repair.

When they had first departed the village after their initial encounter, sent on a quest to Anemone by the machine, 2B had mentioned to him that the white flags unnerved her.  This is consistent with something that 9S has noticed – 2B almost never draws her sword first.  She never hesitates to strike back or to follow a direct order from the Commander, of course, but sometimes 9S thinks that if he didn't attack first or prompt her in some other way, she might even have let a heavily-armed machine tank like the one in the amusement park roll by.

He knows it's a factually incorrect statement, but sometimes 9S looks at 2B with a pink ribbon in her hair and he thinks that she was built for peace.

* * *

_Once, a scream, the feeling of his head being crushed._

_Twice, the slow and intimate feeling of 2B's hands around his neck.  He doesn't remember, but both times he had asked for it.  It is the only intimacy they are allowed as members of YoRHa._

_More times than anyone can bear to count: a sword through the front, when she cradles him; a sword through the back, when she can't bear to look at him._

_More times than should be possible: by his own hand.  YoRHa units are programmed with considerable levels of self-preservation, but 9S is never afraid to die.  2B is always beside him._

* * *

9S realizes quickly after their first meeting with a patrol in the forest kingdom that he has grown complacent – he is too used to being able to run wherever he likes without encountering any hostiles.  His assignment to Earth is not turning out to be what he expected.  He has talked to – helped, even – as many machines as he has destroyed.  Keeping himself constantly on high alert as he dashes through the ginormous trees and crumbling architecture with 2B is more draining than he remembers, but he knows it must be done.

9S cannot name what he feels as he cuts down the machines screaming for their king, but he carries it with him nonetheless, a heaviness in his heart. 

(The feeling is empathy.  They are like him: designed for one purpose but ultimately choosing another.  They were created as war machines, used merely as tools against the enemy, until they had decided, however slowly, however inexplicably, that their primary desire was to protect someone special to them, someone who had shown them a different way to live.  The choice may have been coded into them.  Did that matter?)

* * *

_He does not die, with Adam.  Adam – Adam flays him, exposes him.  It is vivisection as he has never experienced before, not even when he lies in maintenance, all of his wiring under the gaze of the Bunker's pristine lighting._

_His encounter with Adam is entered into the YoRHa databases, of course.  It provides valuable combat information against an important enemy.  But YoRHa does not record how he felt in those moments, with Adam's taunting voice in his ears.  YoRHa will never know just how much he_ feels _._

* * *

9S can't remember when it starts, but the first time he notices it is when he rushes to 2B's side as she staggers under Beauvoir's hacking.  His fingers brush against the exposed skin on her back, and even through his gloves, he can feel the warmth, the quiet hum of circuits that mean she is alive and here with him right now.

He catches himself at other moments after that, his eyes drawn to the bounce of her skirt, the curve of her lips.  He notices that she likes to flip over the top of a ladder in a certain way and that she always kicks open the random boxes they find.  

Sometimes 9S thinks it's natural, as part of his design as a scanner model, to note all of these facts about 2B.  The more he is familiar with her, the easier it is to work with her and any other models like her in the future.

But other times, he stumbles over the irrational thoughts that these are features unique to 2B, that he wouldn't want anyone else at YoRHa to have access to this data.

9S doesn't know how to express what he _does_ want –

– but he wants, and wants, and wants.

* * *

The first time they find a lunar tear, 9S puzzles over it for a few minutes.  They're surrounded by seemingly non-hostile machines, all dressed up as clowns from the Old World, and the glowing plant is actually the least of his worries.  He takes a few notes of it anyway as 2B purchases some supplies from a smiling machine nearby.

It would look kind of cute in 2B's hair, 9S thinks, and he fights the desire to pluck it and tuck it behind her ear.  Maybe after the war, he thinks.  This is what he's always thinking, now. 

Maybe after the war.

* * *

He hears 2B call him "Nines" three times: once killing, once dying, once dead.  He thinks that this is all he knows. 

Killing.  Dying.  Dead.

* * *

_He does not expect his last death.  He sees the moment of hesitation in A2, the gentleness in her eyes, and he only knows that he is full of rage._

* * *

Adam had said the humans on the moon are interesting because they are an enigma.  9S thinks about this in the quiet darkness, even though 2B always tells 9S there's no point in trying to work out unsolvable problems. 

Their pods rush over when he blinks open his eyes, spewing diagnostics and explanations, but 9S tunes them out.  The first and only thing that matters is that 2B is sitting beside him, breathing and alive.  He reaches out for her hand and finds her reaching out for his as a tender smile spreads across her face to mirror his own wordless grin.

Under the clear blue sky, 9S remembers that the androids were made in their creator's image.  He and 2B have killed countless numbers, and died, and killed some more.  Now they will love in equal measure.

**Author's Note:**

> This marks the end of my 9 Worlds series. It's been an incredible time writing for this fandom and I'm so grateful for the warm welcome I received. I don't have any other plans for 2B and 9S lined up at this moment, but I can say without a doubt that this game will have a special spot in my heart for a long time. 
> 
> I feel silly writing this like a goodbye speech, but it's been a long time since I've written fanfiction at all, never mind finished a long series like this one, so I'm quite emotional seeing the end :) I'm not too active on social media, but if you ever want to chat, feel free to hit me up on my [tumblr](http://burningdarkfire.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading. Perhaps we'll meet again - in this universe or another ♡


End file.
